fighter pilots. it was called the t-6 texan because it was built in dallas, texas. designed in the late 1930s. i was looking for an airplane that i could do aerobatics with. it s been a great airplane. july 22nd, 2007. bill leff and his son greg are flying to the air venture event in oshkosh, wisconsin. it s a collection of pilots that really enjoy airplanes of all kinds from little home-built airplanes that they build out of steel tubing and wood to big jets. oshkosh airport becomes the busiest airport in the world for that week. there will be as many as 13,000 airplanes. during the venture, the population of oshkosh skyrockets as people pour into the city on highway 41. it s busy all day because people are going to and from the air show at all different times. the leffs are having an uneventful flight. the engine had been running
designed in the late 1930s. i was looking for an airplane that i could do aero battics with. it s been a great airplane. july 22nd, 2007. bill leff and his son greg are flying to the air venture event in oshkosh, wisconsin. it s a collection of pilots that really enjoy airplanes of all kinds from little home-built airplanes that they build out of steel tubing and wood to big jets. oshkosh airport becomes the busiest airport in the world for that week. there will be as many as 13,000 airplanes. during the venture, the population of oshkosh skyrockets as people pour into the city on highway 41. it s busy all day because people are going to and from the air show at all different times. nchltss t the leffs are having an uneventful flight. the engine had been running smoothly. i even commented to my son on how good things were. 20 miles south of oshkosh
roadblock to halt traffic on the hoyas they make their way toward the plane. because you are always planning for the worst, hoping for the best. are the pilots hurt? how many cars did they strike? when they reach the plane, they are relieved to find it s in one piece and did not hit any cars. this could have been a major disaster. a lot of vehicles with all that fuel and everything else there could have been horrendous accident. this is probably the best outcome we could have had of any other possibility we could think of. bill leff and his son exit the plane feeling lucky to be alive. the trooper greets them at the wing. he just stopped and said you really scared me. i said, well, yeah, kind of scared me, too. he didn t seem excited about the situation at all like they land on highways every day. bill calls his wife before she sees him on the news. i could have lost both of them at one time, so both my husband and my son. that s a scary, scary moment for
incident. we were pulling out into traffic to go to that other call when this all happens. they pull out on to the highway and right in the middle of bill leff s makeshift runway. they can t believe their eyes as the plane glides overhead. basically we saw the underneath of it. there was no engine noise. its engine had seized up. it was completely silent. my first thought was he s going to crash and we re going to have a huge mess. people are going to get hurt out of this. the plane speeds toward trooper linak s cruiser up ahead. it was almost an instant reaction to kind of duck and brace. when i looked out the windshield, all i saw was the bottom of the airplane. the pilot s wheels touch down and he lands the plane on the highway. so you are just standing on the brakes trying to stop and hope you don t hit something. i was waiting for the impact, the crunch. the troopers create a moving
highway. pilot bill left has been flying airplanes for more than four decades. flying say great thing. you become part of the airplane and it becomes an extension of you. and that s what s great about flying. it s just the freedom of it. he does more than just fly. he wows crowds across the globe, performing death-defying stunts at air shows. i do loops and rolls and things called cuban 8s which 24 loops back to back. i will admit there are moments in that in his air show career that have scared me. he can lose his life doing this if he s not careful. leff s plane of choice is his 1943 t-6 texan. these historic planes were used during world war ii to train fighter pilots. it was called the t-6 texan because it was built in dallas, texas.